Mold in Buildings

Mold is a common problem in buildings that affects human health and can also damage or destroy building materials. Because mold requires water to grow, controlling mold requires a thorough understanding of how water enters and travels (or doesn’t) through buildings. Because mold also requires a food source, controlling it also requires an understanding of which building materials are susceptible to mold and how best to use and protect them.

The following documents address these key issues of water movement and mold-susceptibility. They also discuss important topics such as health effects, mold testing, and what to do when mold is found.

Document Type

How water gets into a structure, why it doesn’t leave, and how these architectural flaws become HVAC headaches. This two-part article was first published in HPAC Engineering, December 2001 and January 2002.

Today’s houses make it easier for mold to find the food and water it needs to thrive. The cure is a quick cleanup and smarter choices in materials. Reprinted with permission from Fine Homebuilding, December 2006/January 2007, pages 70-75.

Multifamily public and low-income housing have particular problems when it comes to moisture and air pollutants. In this first of a two-part series, we look at one particular type of multifamily construction: midrise housing. Originally published in Home Energy September/October 2001, pages 24-28.

Here we explore issues unique to Veterans Era Housing and present three cases where moisture problems were successfully addressed. Originally published in Home Energy November/December 2001, pages 33-37.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Buildings today are hollow and multi-layered with numerous air gaps or void spaces. Chases, shafts, soffits and drops abound. Everything is connected to everything else, typically unintentionally.

An edited version of this article was first published in the ASHRAE Journal.
I have loved bourbon for a long time. I like the history. And I like the independent spirit of the folks who make it, their sense of tradition, and their willingness to continue to experiment. Even now after two hundred years of history, they experiment mostly by trial and error rather than by computer simulations. I have often thought that if engineers were in the liquor business, bourbon would be the liquor they would make.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal.
Think of the good old days—the Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII—crawlspaces were uninsulated. They were ventilated and they didn’t have ground covers—and they didn’t have problems. Why?

An edited version of this article was first published in the ASHRAE Journal. In this Building Science Insight, Joseph Lstiburek discusses fundamental building physics applied to wine cellars and the storage of wine.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. So what do you do when you have an old building and the walls aren't doing their job? What do you do when the walls look bad, leak and are falling apart? You give them a face-lift.

This Insight is an excerpt from Armin Rudd's "Ventilation Guide." This publication can be ordered online from www.buildingsciencepress.com. Experience is a great teacher, but much bad experience can be avoided through education. That is the goal of this Insight. Following some basic, uncomplicated design guidelines can go a long way to avoiding most trouble spots.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Energy security is pretty easy to get a handle on—don’t buy oil from the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela. The problem is that it is not cheap energy and it is not clean energy. We can make it clean, and we will, but it will be even more expensive. And actually that is good because we won’t waste it when it is expensive.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Sometimes things are so obvious we miss them. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is like that. Most of us get the heat goes from warm to cold thing. It’s the other simple applications of the Second Law that we miss.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Mold is pretty easy to understand. No water no mold. Any questions? Well, there are a few. For one we have more mold today, but we don’t have more water. What’s with that?

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Higher levels of thermal resistance and reduced heat gain across building enclosures has forever changed the performance of buildings—and not necessarily in a good way.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Spain gave Florida to the United States in exchange for the United States giving up any claims on Texas. Nobody really wanted to live there except the Seminoles until air-conditioning was invented.

An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Hospitals are not fun places to work in, and they are not fun places to build and design or to fix and repair. The stakes are often high. Nothing is more sobering than when someone dies because of a mistake, especially when the mistake does not seem to be a big deal.